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Asian technical experts: skilled corporate migration in the global commodity chain

Global Networks

Published online on

Abstract

["Global Networks, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 413-433, April 2021. ", "\nAbstract\nIn this article I discuss the relocation of skilled employees from the peripheral operating regions of transnational corporations to their operating centres. I examine employees who migrated from regional offices in East and Southeast Asian countries to the headquarters of two athletic footwear companies based in the northwestern United States. Drawing on 12 in‐depth interviews and six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I contextualize corporate migration within the global athletic footwear commodity chain and argue that the layers of asymmetrical power within the industry construct a specific identity profile of the ‘Asian technical expert’ based on employees' embodiment of technical capital, geographical origin, and corporate rank. This identity profile gives regional office employees opportunities for mobility, while creating both empowerment and constraints that structure post‐migration experiences. In this study, by examining migrants from countries that are fairly low down in the global commodity chain hierarchy, I hope to expand both the theoretical framework available to corporate migration scholars and the range of migration considered.\n"]